There’s Something Happening Here, What it is Ain’t Exactly Clear*

When most of us think of crime fiction, we think of a story in which there’s a murder or some other criminal activity and a sleuth or sleuths figure out what happened. Of course there’s a lot more to a good crime fiction novel than that but the basic idea of a crime novel is that, well, there’s a crime. Most of the time. There are some well-written crime novels though in which it’s not really clear that a crime was committed. In novels like that, the appeal is often the psychology of the people involved. The suspense lies in unwrapping if you will people’s memories and discovering what really happened.  And of course there’s the suspense element of working out whether there really was a crime. Such a novel has to include very well-drawn characters though, or at least characters that keep our interest, as that’s usually the focus of this kind of story.

Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder has the flavour of this sort of novel. Giles and Gwenda Reed are newlyweds looking for their first home. For some reason Gwenda is particularly attracted to a house in Dilmouth and the couple duly buy the property and move in. Soon though, Gwenda begins to experience a disturbing sense of déjà vu although she doesn’t consciously remember being in the house before she and Giles bought it. What’s worse, she sees images of a dead woman lying in the hallway of the house. As time passes, Gwenda begins to wonder whether she’s having some sort of mental breakdown. So she’s open to the idea when her cousin Raymond West and his wife invite her for a visit. In the course of staying with the Wests she gets the chance to talk to Miss Marple, who as Christie fans know is West’s aunt. She tells Miss Marple what’s been happening and although Miss Marple doesn’t dismiss the episodes as psychosis, she does suggest that Gwenda should ‘let sleeping murders lie,’ if there even was a murder. Then one evening Gwenda has a bizarre reaction to a scene in a theatre performance. Miss Marple begins to suspect that perhaps something did happen in Dilmouth and that Gwenda may be more aware of it than she knows.

In Andrea Camilleri’s The Shape of Water the body of Silvio Luparello is discovered in a car in a notorious part of town called The Pasture, a meeting place for prostitutes and their clients and for small-time drug dealers and their customers. Inspector Salvo Montalbano is called to the scene and begins to investigate. All indications are that Luparello died of a heart attack during a sexual encounter and there’s nothing in the forensics reports or physical evidence that refutes that theory. Luparello was a wealthy and powerful local political party leader and the discovery of his body in such a compromising situation would mean a great deal of public scandal for his family and his political allies. So there’s a lot of pressure on Montalbano to quietly fill out a ‘rubber stamp’ report and go along with the theory of death by heart attack. But a few things about the case raise questions for Montalbano and he requests some time to look into the matter. He’s given two days and we follow the investigation and in the end we find out what really happened on the night of Silvio Luparello’s death. Throughout the novel, the question of whether there really was a crime adds an interesting layer of suspense.

Karin Fossum’s Bad Intentions also raises the question of whether a crime has really been committed. Three young men Axel Frimann, Philip Reilly and Jon Moreno decide to spend a weekend at a cabin on Dead Water Lake. Jon has recently been released from a mental hospital after having severe anxiety issues and the idea is to give him a change of scenery and a chance for some fun. One night the three are out on the lake when a tragedy occurs and only two of the young men return. Inspector Konrad Sejer and his assistant Jacob Skarre are called in and they question the two survivors. Sejer is certain that these young men know more than they are saying but they’ve obviously decided what they will and will not say, and Sejer can’t seem to break their agreement. What’s more there’s no real evidence to move the case along. Then the body of a teenager is found in Glitter Lake and Sejer and Skarre have another investigation on their hands. As the two detectives investigate, there are real questions about whether one or both incidents involved crime. The key here is much more in the psychologies of the characters than in anything else.

There’s also an interesting question of what, if any, crime was committed in Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant. Delhi private detective Vishwas ‘Vish’ Puri is approached by successful attorney Ajay Kasliwal. A Kasliwal family servant Mary Murmu has disappeared, and he is suspected of having raped and killed her. Kasliwal claims that he is not guilty and doesn’t know where Mary Murmu is. He wants to hire Puri to clear his name and to find out the truth about what happened to his missing servant. Puri takes the case and begins to ask questions. Then Kasliwal is actually arrested and it’s soon clear that part of the reason is that the police don’t want to give the appearance of showing favouritism because of Kasliwal’s wealth and position. So Puri faces the task not only of finding out what happened to Mary Murmu (if anything did), but also of dealing with official resistance to a case that the police want left alone. The question of whether there really was a crime in this case isn’t answered right away and that adds to the interest in this novel.

And then there’s Virginia Duigan’s The Precipice. In that novel, we meet former school principal Thea Farmer. She had a beautiful home built for herself in New South Wales’ Blue Mountains. But after making a terrible financial decision Farmer lost her money and had to sell her dream home and settle for the house next door, a house she refers to as ‘the hovel.’ Farmer is resentful when Frank Campbell and Ellice Carrington purchase what she still considers ‘her’ house and move in. It’s even worse when Frank’s twelve-year-old niece Kim joins the couple. Bit by bit though, Farmer and Kim get to know each other and take an interest in each other. That’s when Farmer begins to suspect that there is something sinister going on in the house next door. And that’s one of the main points of suspense: is there something criminal going on? If there is, what is it? If there’s not, then what does that imply about Farmer? Matters get even more intense when Farmer is so convinced that she’s right about the family next door that she takes a decision that has disastrous consequences.

Angela Savage’s short story The Teardrop Tattoos also raises the question of whether a crime is really committed. In that story, a woman who’s recently been released from prison is given housing not far from a childcare centre. Her only companion (for reasons which are also a part of the story) is her pit bull Sully and she is devoted to her dog. Then one day a complaint is lodged against her for owning a dangerous animal. The woman is devastated by the complaint because it means she’ll have to give up Sully. She is certain that she knows not just who lodged it but why so she makes her own kind of plan for revenge. In the end we find that things are not what they seem, and it’s an interesting look at how our perceptions affect whether or not we think there’s been a crime.

Sometimes a story doesn’t need to have an obvious crime in order to keep readers turning pages. I’ve only mentioned a few examples; which ones have you enjoyed?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Buffalo Springfield’s For What it’s Worth.

No More Separations Where You Have to Say Goodnight to a Telephone*

Have you ever been involved in a long-distance relationship? If you have, then you know they’re not easy to maintain over the long run. It’s one thing to be involved with someone who’s away for a finite period of time. But it’s quite another to keep a relationship strong when the two people involved actually live and work in different places. Nurturing a relationship under those circumstances is very difficult and requires quite a lot of planning and commitment. That tension when two people care deeply for each other but are separated by distance can certainly add to the overall tension in a crime novel. It can also help to flesh out a character.

Sometimes a long-distance relationship actually works well, especially if the two people are independent and have their own lives. For instance, Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza’s Inspector Espinosa lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. He’s involved with Irene, a graphics designer who lives and works in São Paulo and whom he meets in Southwesterly Wind. In that novel, a terrified young man named Gabriel comes to see Espinosa. He is about to celebrate his birthday and that’s why he’s afraid. Gabriel was told by a psychic that he would commit murder before his 29^th birthday and he believes what he was told. Espinosa doesn’t put too much credence in what Gabriel says but he doesn’t dismiss it outright either. Then, a colleague of Gabriel’s is killed. Then there’s another death. The only link seems to be the young man himself, so Espinosa sets about finding out who set Gabriel up to take the blame for these murders. Espinosa and Irene very much enjoy the time they spend together, they care for each other, and they do respect each other. But neither feels the strong urge to re-locate or to marry. They lead independent lives and neither wants to give that up.

Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Salvo Montalbano lives and works in Sicily. His partner Livia Burlando lives and works in Genoa. In one sense that suits them well. They are both independent professionals who have busy lives. And Montalbano for one enjoys the freedom he feels to come and go as he chooses when Livia isn’t there. It’s stressful for him to try to get his job done and spend time with Livia when she’s in town. And yet being separated is not easy at all on their relationship. Montalbano really does care for Livia and sees her good points, and she loves him too. They argue, they consider each other unreasonable at times and so on, but underneath that, we see that they do care about each other. In several of the novels in the series there are sub-plots both funny and not-so-funny in which they try to balance seeing each other with the realities of their lives.

There’s also the long-distance relationship between Åsa Larsson’s Rebecka Martinsson and her lover Måns Wenngren. When we first meet them in The Savage Altar (AKA Sun Storm), they work for the same law firm in Stockholm. But when a former friend’s brother is murdered, Martinsson returns to her home town of Kiruna to do what she can to help. Then when her friend is charged with the murder Martinsson stays on to defend her. As the series moves on Martinsson chooses to stay in Kiruna. She feels very much that she belongs there and doesn’t regret her decision. Meanwhile Wenngren remains in Stockholm. The two do care very much about each other and both of them enjoy their time together. But keeping their relationship strong is not easy. Wenngren would just as soon have Martinsson move back to Stockholm. Martinsson cares very much for Wenngren but isn’t willing to do that. Neither character is painted as wholly right or wrong as far as that conflict goes and it adds an interesting layer to the series.

In Paddy Richardson’s Hunting Blind we meet newly-minted psychiatrist Stephanie Anderson, who lives and works in Dunedin. In the course of her work one of her patients Elizabeth Clark tells her about a terrible incident. Years earlier, Clark’s little sister Gracie was abducted and never found; not even a body was discovered. Clark’s story eerily resembles a tragic incident from Anderson’s own past. When Anderson was fourteen her little sister Gemma was abducted and she too was never found. Anderson wants to find some peace and lay her own ghosts to rest. So although it’s very risky she decides to find out who abducted both girls. She begins to follow the trail of the incidents and in the process she meets Dan, who works as a hunting guide. They fall in love and she discovers that Dan too may have a piece of the puzzle she’s trying to solve. Although she cares very much for Dan she doesn’t want to stop her search, so the two begin a long-distance relationship as Anderson travels back to her home town of Wanaka. As she continues to search for answers, Anderson finds out the truth about the disappearances and it’s interesting to see how her relationship with Dan evolves throughout the course of the novel, and how it sustains her.

Anthony Bidulka’s Saskatoon PI Russell Quant has to deal with the ups and downs of a long-distance relationship too. In Stain of the Berry, Quant is hired by Warren Culinare to look into the reasons behind his sister Tanya’s suicide. Matters are complicated because Tanya had apparently tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to contact Quant herself before her death. He takes the case and begins to ask some questions. Meanwhile he’s also trying to solve another mystery: the disappearance of his good friend and next-door-neighbour Sereena Orion Smith. That’s how he meets Alex Canyon, a private and corporate security specialist. The two become involved and decide to continue their relationship even after Canyon moves to Melbourne to take on a new job. Quant remains in Saskatoon and the two of them use Hawai’i as a meeting point. In fact, that’s why Quant is in Hawai’i at the beginning of Aloha Candy Hearts. In that novel, Quant is preparing to return to Saskatoon when he meets an enigmatic stranger at the airport.  The man, who turns out to be archivist Walter Angel, slips a cryptic message very much like a treasure map into Quant’s hand luggage. Shortly afterwards, Angel is murdered. Quant follows up on the clue he was given and connects Walter Angel’s death to some secrets hidden right at home in Saskatchewan. It’s clear in these novels that Quant and Canyon care deeply about each other despite the distance that separates them. It’s not easy on either of them and their attempts to remain a couple form an interesting aspect to this series.

Here’s to all of those who try to keep their long-distance loves close. The fact is, long-distance relationships are not easy for anyone. If you’ve ever been in one you know exactly what I mean. But these relationships can add characterisation and interest to a crime novel. I’ve only mentioned a few here because of space. Which ones have you enjoyed?

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s The Night is Still Young.

Comfort in My Coffee Cup*

What do you think most crime-fictional sleuths have in common? Oh, I’m not thinking so much of personality traits (although I do think most sleuths have a certain kind of intelligence and a sense of curiosity among other things). If you think about it, the majority of sleuths drink more than their share of coffee and tea. And as one who’s willingly addicted to coffee (black, no sugar) I can see why. Coffee and tea serve a couple of major purposes for those of us who drink them. One is the caffeine. If you’re addicted to caffeine then you know how welcome that first sip in the morning is. Another is that both serve as comforts. We deal with all sorts of stresses and strains in life by having a cup of coffee or tea. And then there’s the social nature of coffee and tea drinking. People share all sorts of things over a cuppa and the ritual of offering a guest a cup of coffee or tea can be very useful if you’re a sleuth. That ritual tends to put people a bit at their ease since it gives them something to do. And the more at their ease people are, the more likely they are to open up to the sleuth.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot isn’t much of a tea drinker but he knows its value for getting information. For example, in Dead Man’s Folly his friend Ariadne Oliver has asked him to join her at Nasse House in Nassecomb. She’s been commissioned by Nasse House’s owner Sir George Stubbs to plan a Murder Hunt (rather like a scavenger hunt) for an upcoming fête to be held there. Oliver suspects that something more sinister than a fête may be going on although she can’t identify exactly what that might be. Poirot travels to Nasse House to see what he can discover. Mrs. Oliver turns out to have been quite right in her fears; fourteen-year-old Marlene Tucker, who was to play the part of the victim in the game, is strangled. Poirot works with Inspector Bland to find out who the murderer is. One of the people he talks to is Amy Folliat, who lives in the lodge on the property and whose family actually owned Nasse House for generations. Poirot knows that he’ll find out much more from her over a cup of tea than in a police interview, and he turns out to be right. He visits her in her home a couple of times and those conversations turn out to be pivotal to the novel. Of course there’s also an Agatha Christie story or two where coffee turns out to be the murder weapon, too…

In many cultures it’s the custom when someone comes to one’s home to offer that person a cup of coffee or tea and that ritual often serves to help the sleuth win witnesses’ and suspects’ trust and get information. There are many, many examples of this in crime fiction. I’ll just mention a few. In Tony Hillerman’s Coyote Waits for instance, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee are working together to find out who murdered Chee’s good friend and fellow officer Delbert Nez. Nez was investigating a case of vandalism when he was ambushed and murdered and his car burned. The most obvious suspect is Ashie Pinto, who was actually found near the scene of the crime and who doesn’t put up any resistance to being arrested. In fact, what he says is that he is ashamed. But Pinto’s relations don’t think he’s guilty and neither does Pinto’s attorney Janet Pete. So Chee and Leaphorn look more deeply into the case. At one point Leaphorn and anthropology professor Louisa Bourbonette travel to a general store owned by John McGinnis, who’s been in the area forever and may have some information. Despite being know for his prickliness, he offers his guests coffee because it’s part of the ritual in that area. Then he shares his perspective on Ashie Pinto and it turns out to be very useful.

In Helene Tursten’s Detective Inspector Huss, Göteberg detective Irene Huss and her team investigate the death of wealthy financier Richard von Knecht. At first his death looks like a suicide but he hadn’t been depressed and there seems no reason he would have ended his life. Then, little bits of forensic evidence begin to suggest that Von Knecht was murdered. This means that the team has to follow up with neighbours and others who may have been witnesses. One such person is Fru Eva Karlsson, an elderly widow who seems only too glad for the company when Huss asks to visit her. Huss arrives and Fru Karlsson lays out a full coffee feast with fresh-brewed coffee and many different kinds of pastries. It’s not what Huss had expected but she knows that if she’s too brusque she won’t get the information that she needs. Besides, the pastries look delicious. So she and Fru Karlsson settle in for a coffee party and from that Huss gains some important information.

Sometimes sleuths themselves are the ones who offer tea or coffee and that too can be useful. In Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant Delhi private investigator Vishwas “Vish” Puri and his team are working on a few cases. One of them is a background investigation commissioned by Brigadier Kapoor. Kapoor wants Puri to look into the background of Mahinder Gupta who is engaged to marry Kapoor’s grand-daughter Tisca. On the surface Gupta seems a perfect candidate for marriage and for quite a while the team can find nothing even interesting, let alone nefarious, in his background. But then the team discovers that Gupta does have a secret. In order to get the full information on that secret Puri will have to talk to Tisca Kapoor, and she is not willing to have the wedding called off. But Puri treats her to tea and sandwiches and has a frank talk with her. His efforts to be hospitable turn out to be successful and Tisca tells him what he needs to know.

There are dozens of novels too in which tea or coffee is used as what used to be called a restorative after someone’s had a shock. You could probably think of lots more than I could. And of course, what would your favourite fictional sleuths be without that jolt of caffeine that comes from coffee and tea? Many sleuths (Christie’s Hercule Poirot, Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe and Andrea Camilleri’s Salvo Montalbano being notable exceptions) occasionally go without a meal. But without coffee or tea? I don’t think so. Of course, that addiction can be dangerous too. Just ask Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus. In Resurrection Men he’s remanded to Tulliallan Police College for a “one last chance” course along with several other officers who’ve had difficulty with authority. While they’re there, they’re put on the “cold case” of small-time crook Eric Lomax, whose murder was never solved. And in the end that case turns out to be related to the case that Rebus was working on before he got into trouble with his superiors. And what happened to get him into trouble like that? Tea. Rebus threw a mug of tea at his superior, which is not generally advisable.

Then of course there are several crime fiction series such as Cleo Coyle’s Coffeehouse Mysteries that are set in coffee and teashops. Not only do those settings allow for some interesting character interactions but they also have a lot of interesting information on different varieties of coffee and tea.

But incidents like that aside, tea and coffee fuel a lot of our interactions. Lots of people are addicted to the caffeine in those drinks and they provide solace and comfort too. So whether it’s terrible instant coffee in a cheap Styrofoam cup or a delicious cup of Lapsang souchong served in delicate china, coffee and tea are woven throughout crime fiction. Now if you’ll excuse me, the coffee’s just ready and it’s time for a break.
 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s Famous Last Words.

Everybody’s Working For the Weekend*

Another week-end has arrived! A lot of people look forward to the week-end as it offers them a chance to relax, get domestic things done, go out and catch up on things they can’t do during the week. The expression TGIF (Thank God it’s Friday!) captures the way a lot of folks think about the week-end. But before you get all excited you may want to take a look at how much crime fiction actually takes place during that time. Trust, me fictional sleuths do not get a break just because it happens to be sometime between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.

For instance, in Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis’ The Boy in the Suitcase, Nina Borg gets an odd request from her friend Karin. Karin wants her to pick up a suitcase from a locker at Copenhagen’s Central Station. What Karin hasn’t told Nina is that the suitcase contains a three-year-old boy. He’s in a drugged and dazed state but he’s alive. When Nina tries to find Karin to get some answers, she discovers that her friend has been murdered. She also learns soon enough that the person who murdered Karin is now after her. In the meantime Sigita Ramoskiene, a young Lithuanian mother, is looking for answers of her own. Her three-year-old son Mikas was abducted from a playground near Vilnius and she is desperate to get him back. Both she and Nina continue to search for answers and it’s soon clear that the little boy Nina found is in fact Sigita’s son Mikas. Each in a different way, and for most of the novel separately, the two women try to solve the mystery of who took Mikas and why.  So, when is Mikas abducted?  Saturday afternoon.

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Red-Headed League, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson get a visit from Mr. Jabez Wilson, a pawnbroker with a very strange story to tell. Wilson responded to a job offering that specifically targeted men with red hair. Despite competition from many other men who’d applied as well, Wilson got the job. All he had to do to earn extra money was to copy the Encyclopaedia Britannica. One day he arrived at his place of employment only to find that it was closed and the Red-Headed League he thought he’d joined was disbanded. Wilson wants Holmes to find out what happened to the Red-Headed League and solve the mystery of his odd employment. It turns out that this job was simply a ruse to get Wilson out of his pawn shop so that a gang of thieves could use it to dig a tunnel into a nearby bank. Holmes enlists local police officer Peter Jones and bank director Mr. Merryweather to go along as he and Watson prepare to trap the thieves. And when does all of this action take place? Saturday night. In fact, Merryweather gives up his Saturday evening rubber of bridge to go along on the chase. See what I’m getting at here?

And then there’s Håkan Nesser’s The Unlucky Lottery (AKA Münster’s Case). Waldemar Leverkuhn and a few of his friends went in together on a lottery ticket. To their surprise and delight the ticket came up a winner. The four men agree to meet to celebrate their win and they go out together. Very late that night, Leverkuhn’s wife Marie-Louise comes home to find that her husband has been stabbed. Intendant Münster and his team investigate the case beginning with Leverkuhn’s family and neighbours. When they find out about the winning lottery ticket they also investigate Leverkuhn’s friends. What the team finds is that this is not a simple case. There are few leads and despite the fact that Leverkuhn seemed to be an inoffensive elderly man, there was more to his life than it seemed on the surface. In case you hadn’t guessed already, Leverkuhn is murdered on a Saturday night.

And just so you know, Sundays are not any safer than Saturdays when it comes to crime fiction. In Agatha Christie’s The Hollow, Sir Henry and Lady Lucy Angkatell invite a group of friends and relations to spend the week-end with them at their country home. Among the guests are Harley Street specialist Dr. John Christow and his wife Gerda. Hercule Poirot has taken a nearby cottage and has been invited for lunch on the Sunday. When he arrives at the Angkatell home though, he’s dismayed to see what looks like a tableau arranged for his “amusement.” The body of John Christow is lying by the pool and the killer is standing over the body holding the murder weapon. At first Poirot is far from amused. But when he realises that this is no act he begins to ask questions. It’s soon clear that there’s more to this murder than the scene would suggest. He and Inspector Grange work together to find out who would have wanted to kill John Christow and what the motive is. Did you notice? That murder takes place on Sunday.

So does the murder of beloved former schoolteacher Jane Neal, whom we meet in Louise Penny’s Still Life. Neal is a resident of Three Pines, a small town in rural Québec. On the Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend, Neal takes an early walk with her dog. During her walk she’s killed by an arrow in what looks like a tragic hunting accident. Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté is assigned the case. Something about it just doesn’t fit with the theory of accident so Gamache and his team investigate more thoroughly. They find that several people in Three Pines are not telling everything they know about their own lives or their relationships with Jane Neal. It turns out that despite the fact that Three Pines is a close-knit community more than one person in the area had a reason to want Neal out of the way.

Sunday is also not a safe day for powerful politician Silvio Luparello, as we discover in Andrea Camilleri’s The Shape of Water. Early one Monday morning, two workers are assigned the task of cleaning The Pasture, a notorious area of the Sicilian town of Vigatà. In the process of cleaning everything up they discover Luparello’s mostly-unclothed body in a car. Inspector Salvo Montalbano is assigned the case and it’s not going to be an easy one. Neither Luparello’s political allies nor his family members want the circumstances of his death to be made public. He was found after all in very embarrassing circumstances in a place usually frequented by prostitutes and their clients. So the Powers That Be put a lot of pressure on Montalbano to “rubber stamp” the official verdict of death by heart attack. Montalbano doesn’t believe the case is that simple and he asks for two extra days to ask questions. He’s reluctantly granted the time and gets to work. He finds that Luparello had plenty of political enemies, political “allies” and even family members who are only too happy he’s gone.  And when did Luparello die? That’s right, folks: Sunday evening.

 

You see? Week-ends are just not safe! So if you do make plans, please be careful. I’m just saying…

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Loverboy’s Working for the Weekend.

But You’re a Legend In Your Own Time*

There are a number of news articles, gatherings and other commemorations in honour of the late Elvis Presley, who died thirty-five years ago. You may think that interest is ghoulish or you may be interested yourself. Whatever your opinion of those memorials or of Presley’s music, it’s hard to deny his considerable influence. For many people he’s a legend and it’s all got me to thinking about what happens when someone famous dies. As the layers of that person’s public persona are peeled away, we often learn more and more about that person. We certainly see that in crime fiction when a famous person is murdered. The police often have to get past the victim’s public “self” to find the motive and the killer because most murders are committed by people the victim knew personally. As the detective learns about the victim’s personal life, readers see the famous person as a full human being rather than just a politician, an actor, a famous writer or something else.

For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun we meet famous actress Arlena Stuart Marshall. She, her husband Captain Kenneth Marshall and her step-daughter Linda are taking a holiday at the Jolly Roger Hotel on Leathercombe Bay. All seems to be going well enough but then shortly after their arrival Arlena begins to take a special interest in fellow guest Patrick Redfern. It’s not long before the other guests are gossiping about their affair. Late one morning Arlena is found strangled at Pixy’s Cove not far from the hotel. Hercule Poirot is staying at the Jolly Roger and as it happens he is possibly the last person to see the victim before her death. So he works with Colonel Weston and Inspector Colgate to find out who killed Arlena and why. The most obvious suspect is her husband but he’s got a solid alibi for the time of the murder. So the detectives take a closer look at the victim’s life to find out who else had a motive. As they do they find that the reality of Arlena’s life was quite different to her public reputation as a notorious “man-eater.”

Ellery Queen’s The Four of Hearts is the story of Blythe Stuart and John Royle, both famous actors. Years ago the two had a stormy but passionate romance – the kind that’s the delight of tabloid journalists. They broke up and now refuse to have anything to do with each other. Each married someone else and now has a child; Stuart’s daughter Bonnie and Royle’s son Ty have carried on their parents’ feud to the next generation. But then the top executives at Magna Studios decide to try to coax the two to co-operate on a bio-film. Ellery Queen has a contract with Magna and will be working on the screenplay. To everyone’s shock, not only do Stuart and Royle agree to do the picture, but they re-kindle their romance. The studio brass take advantage of the romance and plan a “Hollywood-style” wedding, with all of the hype that entails. The plan is for Stuart and Royle to wed on an airstrip from whence Stuart, Royle and their children are to take off for the wedding trip. When the plane lands both Stuart and Royle are dead of what turns out to be poison. At first their children blame each other but soon enough it’s proven that neither is guilty. So Queen looks more deeply into the case. As he does we learn more about Bonnie Stuart, John Royle and their backgrounds and we see sides of their lives that the public never got to see.

That’s also true of what we learn about up-and-coming politician Androu “Andy” Boychuk in Gail Bowen’s Deadly Appearances. Boychuk has just been selected to lead Saskatchewan’s provincial Official Opposition party and despite some misgivings there is a lot of hope that he’ll be both an able politician and a skilled leader. Then tragically Boychuk is poisoned at a picnic. Boyckuk’s close friend and campaign worker Joanne Kilbourn is devastated by his death, not least because it brings back memories of the loss of her husband Ian. In part to deal with her grief, Kilbourn decides to write a biography of Boychuk. In the process Kilbourn learns that there were sides to her good friend’s life that even his best friends didn’t know, let alone the public. The real Andy Boychuk was a much more complex person than the public really knew. She’s slowly putting these pieces together when there’s another murder. Now Kilbourn tries to find out what connects the murders and who would have wanted to kill both victims.

In Andrea Camilleri’s The Shape of Water, the body of powerful party leader Silvio Luparello is found in a car in The Pasture, a notorious area of the Sicilian city of Vigatà. Inspector Salvo Montalbano is assigned the investigation and he is told to make it as brief and as quiet as possible. Any public discussion of the circumstances of Luparello’s death will cause embarrassment for his family and for the party so Montalbano is strongly urged to “rubber stamp” the official account of Luparello’s death – a fatal heart attack. But there are things about the case t hat don’t add up so Montalbano begins to dig deeper. As he does we find out more about Luparello’s life, his business and political connections and his family. It turns out that Luparello had several sides to him that the public really didn’t know about and readers learn the truth as the novel goes on. In the end, we find that his death was not as it appears on the surface.

Neither really is the death of famous former politician Alec Dennet in Kel Robertson’s Smoke and Mirrors. When Dennet’s body and that of his editor Lorraine Starck are found at a writer’s retreat outside of Canberra, Australian Federal Police officer Bradman “Brad” Chen is persuaded to investigate. Dennet was working on his memoirs at the time of his murder. There was a great deal of talk that he was going to reveal some secrets about his life in the 1972-75 Gough Whitlam government and there are a lot of important people who don’t want those truths told. So at first it seems likely that those memoirs are the reason for Dennet’s murder. That explanation makes even more sense when it comes out that Dennet’s manuscript is missing. It really does appear that Dennet’s public persona is the reason for his murder. But as Chen and his team look more deeply into the case and into Dennet’s life they find that matters are not as simple or as complicated as that. As the investigation goes on we learn more about his private life and that of his editor and it’s interesting how both characters become more rounded and complex.

And then there’s Teresa Solana’s A Shortcut to Paradise. In that novel famous novelist Marina Dolç attends a posh awards banquet at which she receives the coveted Golden Apple prize for her latest novel. When she returns to her hotel room after the dinner, she’s murdered. The police begin their investigation and they soon have a very likely suspect: Dolç’s top rival for the prize Amadeu Cabestany. Cabestany says that he wasn’t at the hotel at the time of the murder, but he can’t prove his claim. Still his literary agent believes him and besides, Cabestany is a gold mine for her. So she hires private investigators Josep “Pep” Martínez and his brother Eduard to find out who really killed Dolç. It’s not an easy case as Dolç was a very private person. But as the Martínez brothers look into the matter they get to know the victim through conversations with her assistant and several other people in her life. They find out that there was a real difference between the Marina Dolç that readers came to know and the real Marina Dolç. And what’s interesting is that her public persona plays a role in the reason she was killed.

When a famous person dies, especially if the death is under unusual or tragic circumstances, there’s a lot of talk about what that person was really like. There’s often a lot of peeling away of the layers of the person’s life and sometimes we even get to know a little about who that famous person was as a human. As ghoulish as that interest sometimes is, in a way it’s also arguably natural; there’s definitely a lot of curiosity about famous people.

 

 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Carly Simon’s Legend in Your Own Time.